NBO Legal Hackers at Hiil Innovating Justice Conference

Our NBO Legal Hackers team was at the Hiil Innovating Justice Conference hosted by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) in Nairobi.

The Nairobi Innovating Justice Conference is one of six global gatherings that bring together entrepreneurs, academia, corporates and others to discuss and showcase innovations improving access to justice. This year’s gathering featured strategic partnerships with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Liquid Telecom, GIZ (the German development agency), KICTANet, GJLOS, Nairobi Legal Hackers, the Advocacy Accelerator and many more.

Seven justice start-ups from the region showcased a series of pitches of several tech – based solutions which can empower citizens to access justice faster and more efficiently in East Africa. These were the Pitching Startups:

Btrack Global: Btrack Global enables motorcyclists to track their motorcycles through the use of phones, to make them easily recoverable after they have been stolen.

Wakili Mkononi: Wakili Mkononi is a social enterprise, that offers legal aid services and legal networking services on a digital platform.

WASILIANAHUB: WASILIANAHUB is the first collaborative online & mobile tech-justice marketplace, building Africa’s largest Certified Professional Mediators portal for the advancement of Africa’s mediation practice. Professional help is ensured, helping to save time, money & heartache.

iCourtroom: iCourtroom acts as a repository of wildlife crime data, tailored to do analysis of the cases and serves as a measure of law enforcement efficacy.

Viamo: In Rwanda Viamo is developing information on access to justice that will be made available on demand in pre-recorded audio and text, on a toll-free mobile service under the shortcode 845, supported by MTN; and

Nusu Hub: Jumuiya Attorney is a marketplace that enables people from low income and rural areas of Tanzania to hire legal professionals, all of whom are pre-screened and vetted.

There was a Panel on Justice Across Borders: How to Scale Solutions with representatives from GJLOS, the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission and Justice Kairu of the Judiciary’s Court of Appeal.

Of interest on this panel was the solutions which Justice Kairu indicated the judiciary was using and proposed to enhance access to justice.

These include the e – filing system currently rolled out in the Commercial and Tax Division at Milimani Law courts. The intention to introduce an e-service system for service to respondents. Proposal to adopt the speech to text proceedings in order to relieve judicial officers from long hand writing of court proceedings. Implementation of a client – facing support system to be sent to court users informing them of the status of the matters and an Application to have interaction between clients and the court registry especially where advocates fail to apprise clients accordingly.

The HiiL Justice Accelerator is part of the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law. HiiL’s goal is helping 150 million people prevent or resolve their most pressing justice needs by 2030. The Innovating Justice Challenge has been the world’s foremost search for justice innovations since 2012. Each year hundreds of justice innovations apply, and between 15-20 will be selected for grant funding, justice expertise and networking, and mentorship.

The winners of the pitch competition were: 1st Place – Btrack Global, 2nd Place – Viamo, 3rd Place Wakili Mkononi who also scooped the Audience Award.

June Okal is a Technology, Media and Telecommunications lawyer. She serves as co-organizer of Nairobi Legal Hackers and blogs for Techweez, a leading technology news digital media platform, and is a fellow of the Internet Society (ISOC), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Equity African Leadership Programme (EALP).

About Nairobi Legal Hackers

NBO Legal Hackers is the Kenyan Chapter of a robust and fast – growing movement of legal hackers in Africa. The Chapter was the first African Chapter of the Legal Hackers Community and has been instrumental in the growth of the community in the region.

A legal hacker is someone who cares about the intersection of law and technology and seeks to improve legal practice through technology while simultaneously using legal skills to promote technological innovation and exploration.